Towards a Gender-Equal Bundestag? The Impact of Electoral Rules on Women’s Representation

Cross-sectional research designs show that proportional representation (PR) tends to produce more equitable outcomes in terms of gender representation. While existing research provides valuable insights into the covariates of gender representation, such cross-sectional designs fail to provide a definitive test of the influence of electoral rules both over time and in the case of mixed systems. Addressing this gap, this article proposes a longitudinal research design using the case of Germany, because half the Bundestag’s seats are allotted through majoritarian first-past-the-post methods, while the other half are allotted through proportional methods. The main findings point towards heavy interaction between the two electoral tiers that becomes visible in party quotas, double nominations and increased competitiveness of female candidates. Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the 2011 American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in Seattle and benefited from the comments made by the participants. We would like to thank Clara Neupert-Wentz for her assistance, Louise K. Davidson-Schmich, Berthold Rittberger, and the two anonymous reviewers of West European Politics for their helpful suggestions. Notes 1. We justify the choice of 1961 as the baseline year as follows: we excluded the 1949 elections since different electoral rules were employed. The decision to exclude 1953 and 1957 stems from the special conditions surrounding these elections. Both parties and voters alike needed some time to adjust their voting and nomination behaviour to the new rules. According to Bremme (1956: 141), women’s extraordinary success in the 1953 election, for instance, was based on the large parties not correctly anticipating possible consequences of different nomination strategies. 2009 is a natural cut-off since it was the most recent German Bundestag election at the time of publication. 2. Other modes of affirmative action or positive female discrimination are reserved seats or all-women lists (Norris 2000: 2–3). 3. A detailed description of the development of party quotas and other measures for enhancing female representation within and across the five big German parties can be found in McKay (2004). 4. This applies for the CDU and the SPD in particular as the Greens and FDP hardly ever manage to win any constituency and thus often do not even nominate a candidate for every district. 5. We deliberately bypass some of the interesting features of the German electoral rules such as Überhangmandate since a recent ruling of the Constitutional Court has required this part of the electoral system to be revamped. 6. However, this evidence is disputed (Ko 2008). 7. A popular counter-example is Hans-Christian Ströbele (the Greens, Berlin) who lost his secure place on the party list several years ago but won a direct mandate and thus a seat in the Bundestag in the last three federal elections. 8. When both SMD and lists are counted together – as they should be, given the linkage – average district magnitude is around 41 in each of the 16 Land districts (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001: 19). 9. Although the evidence is split on what type of discrimination – positive, negative, issue-based – women suffer at the hands of the electorate (Bledsoe and Herring 1990; Darcy et al. 1994; Dolan 1997; Gaddie and Bullock III 1997; Herrnson et al. 2003; Smith and Fox 2001).